Archive for December, 2008

I recently met up with a successful career entrepreneur named Jim Carrillo, he helped develop a technology called Blue Marquee Technology (learn more: click here ) which helped create one of his current projects, called the ” Free Public Wifi Project” I’ve included an excerpt from his site below:

“A holistic online marketing agency, Fathom SEO stands apart from other search engine placement firms because we’ve learned to integrate critical online marketing disciplines. We support the specialization with outstanding processes that can help your business connect with new customers at the precise moment they are searching for your products or services.”

“Fathom SEO’s roots are in natural Search Engine Optimization with its core team of SEO experts, but we’ve expanded our services to include an entire suite of offerings that can benefit companies like yours. In addition to SEO, Fathom SEO assists businesses with Paid Search, Online PR, Link Building, Opt-in Email Marketing, and Online Digital Video Production Services.”http://www.fathomseo.com/about-us/why-were-different.asp

Nothing could be further from the truth. While there are some sites like MySpace and others that were originally created to cater exclusively to teenagers, many of them are now attracting older participants.

And although there are literally thousands of social sites out there today, once you determine the goals and objectives of your social media efforts, you’ll be able to narrow down the list to a select few that will concentrate on your target market.

Social Media Myth #2 – Social Media is Just a Fad

When the Internet first arrived on the scene, it was all about providing information and selling “stuff”. And while that is still a large part, Web 2.0 is all about users interacting with each other and consumer generated content.

When 6 out the top 10 websites in the world are social sites and they are getting 1 billion visitors a month and growing, I guarantee this is not a fad. This is Web 2.0, the future! And the best part is, that you have the opportunity to learn about it and get involved in it while it is still relatively new.

Social Media Myth #3 – Social Strategies Are Just for Big Companies

The Internet is the great equalizer. You are what your customers and prospects see, hear and read on line. If you make great products or provide great services and you can reach the right audience through a compelling social media strategy, then your company will benefit with more exposure, higher brand awareness and of course increased sales.

My advice is not to worry about what the big boys are doing, do what you need to do to grow your business and believe me you need to be doing social media marketing. Social media is a great “guerrilla marketing” tool that you can take advantage of and start reaping the benefits from very quickly.

Social Media Myth #4 – Social Media Marketing Will Cost a Lot of Money to Implement

The good news is that creating and implementing a social media-marketing plan does not have to cost a lot of money. As a matter of fact most social media websites cost nothing to join.

Now don’t get me wrong, as with anything, you’ll certainly have to devote an adequate amount of time and resources to be effective, but in actual hard dollars and cents, your investment can be quite minimal.

Social Media Myth #5 – Social Media Marketing is Primarily Used for Finding Friends and Sharing Video and Photos

While YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and other similar sites are indeed used to find friends and share experiences, photos and videos, many savvy marketers are finding that they can connect with groups, users, fans and enthusiasts.

How? By providing free information that members might find useful or enhance their experiences. These types of sites should not be overlooked as a way to open 2-way dialogs with your target market

Social Media Myth #6 – You Have to be a Marketing Whiz or Computer Geek to Effectively Use Social Media

Once again, not true. If you can surf the Internet, buy a book on Amazon and read blogs, you have the skills needed to benefit from social media. Frankly, the most important thing you need to help your company get involved in social media marketing is the desire to learn and the time to implement some very basic ideas and strategies.

Now, are there more advanced features on some of these sites? Sure, but even those can be applied by just asking current users or reading instructions that many of the sites themselves provide. I’m telling you, this is not rocket science!

As President of Street Smart Sales and Marketing, David Carleton has developed sales, marketing and training programs that have helped hundreds of businesses in 30 countries around the world generate leads, increase sales and enhance their overall marketing effectiveness. He specializes in lead generation and social media marketing strategies using unique low cost guerrilla marketing techniques. To download your Free Report “Why Your Marketing Doesn’t Work and What to Do About it” visit http://www.StreetSmartSalesAndMarketing.com

If you’ve ever wondered whether you should diversify right off the bat or focus on one area in the beginning, then wonder no more. The secret to success is really in focusing first and diversifying later! Become a master in one marketing method and one niche first before diversifying into other methods and niches later on.

In many niches and marketing methods online, there is definitely some space for anyone to come in and totally dominate the market. Take article marketing for example. Most topics on the Internet can be dominated just by having someone come with in with a few thousand articles, perhaps outsourced to professional writers. Anyone can become prominent in a niche using such a simple and fool-proof strategy.

Why is it so important that you focus on just one area online? Let’s take Michael and John (no reference to real-live personalities). Michael decides to try his hand at pay per click advertising, article marketing and classified advertising all at once. He gets mediocre results from all of them. However, John decides to just focus on article marketing because he has seen results from it. So he scales up his article marketing efforts and becomes a master of that traffic generation strategy. Guess who is going to see success faster?

At the beginning, you will want to do a little testing of different strategies. But keep it to small tests only rather than full-blown marketing campaigns. Go all-out on the strategy that appeals to you and generates initial results for you.

Fabian Tan is a well-known Internet Marketing expert and the author of the popular 45-page Report:

“Murder Your Job: How To Build Cash Sucking Autopilot Businesses In 30 Days Or Less!”

I hope everyone is having a happy holiday season, and for those that are having tough times, I’m hoping 2009 rings in better things for you and yours…

I’ve decided to share today’s personal experience….

Today was a great day, not just because it was a holiday or that I had the day off, but because my husband and I had the privelage of making a difference in the lives of some local needy families.

Wednesday afternoon I let my boss know I was going to be dedicating the day to community service at a shelter, he asked if I wanted to take some toys his 3 kids had wanted to donate. I jumped at the opportunity and said, “of course, thanks”. To make a long story short, he dropped them off and I got wrapping! We made the visit to the families and handed out all the gifts! Seeing those little faces light up along with the gratitude and happiness of the parents was the best thing in the world, and to top it off something amazing happened while walking back to the car. There was a full fledged giant arched rainbow that appeared as if it were on a timer! I have never seen a full rainbow so beautiful and up close, it was as if God was smiling on us and letting us know better times were ahead both for us and those families in 2009 and beyond.

The advent of Web 2.0 has transformed the online marketing landscape dramatically. Small and medium-sized businesses can now compete on a level playing field with industry giants like Unilever or websites such as MySpace.

With Web 2.0 you can market your products on social networking sites and blogs at very little cost, while the new technology also allows you to monitor customer trends and measure results.

One of the oldest and most traditional methods of Web 2.0 marketing is targeted advertising on search engines. With this method you can have your ad listed on the search results page or appear within an article on a subject related to your product. These are generally paid for per click, but you can be guaranteed each click will bring a new visit to your site.

A much more recent phenomenon is the use of social networking websites to market products. This method is used by everyone from one man operations to multi-national corporations. A page on MySpace or FaceBook can boost the popularity of your product, but be sure to keep the content fresh and updated. Also, you will generally have a young audience here so the content should reflect this.

Blogs offer similar opportunities for Web 2.0 marketing. This is an inexpensive way to subtly market your product or service on the web. However, good content that is updated regularly is essential. Just talking about your products will drive visitors away. Your blog entries will have to be interesting, informative and well written.

If you feel you have the resources and talents in your organization to make interesting audio snippets, you could try podcasting. Again, you will need to provide something that listeners will want to hear, while promoting your product. For example, if you sell cars or car parts you could produce a podcast on car care tips.

Basically, you’ll want to get news and references to your business out there in as many ways as possible. Web 2.0 allows you to send news and press releases direct to the consumer. For example you could offer a RSS feed on your website, or submit search engine optimized press releases to online news sites.

The real beauty of Web 2.0 marketing is that it can be cheap to do. Not all of the options described above might be suitable to market your business, but a simple blog or MySpace page will cost you very little.

If you would like to read other articles and watch videos on topics like this one, you can join us at http://www.relativitycorp.com. We have tons of resources on Web 2.0 Marketing written by David C Skul CEO. You can also sign up to get information in you email in box weekly at the site as well.